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Iraq says it destroys Mosul car bomb factories

“Iraqi forces captured a neighborhood in east Mosul on Friday, pushing deeper to the heart of Islamic State’s Iraq stronghold and destroying three sites where it produced car bombs used in waves of suicide attacks, the campaign’s commander said.

Lieutenant-General Abdul Ameer Rasheed Yarallah said Counter Terrorism Service forces spearheading the seven-week operation to retake Mosul seized the Tamim district halfway between the city’s eastern edge and the River Tigris running through its center.

The elite troops, part of a U.S.-backed, 100,000-strong coalition of Iraqi forces, have been fighting street battles with the militants and now control around half of the city’s eastern neighborhoods.

But progress has been slow as they have faced counterattacks by the jihadist fighters, who deployed hundreds of the suicide car bombs, as well as mortars and snipers, and used the city’s million residents as human shields.”